GOP 'Firing Back' at New Todd Akin Memoir

The Republican Party's worst nightmare is coming back to haunt it just as it hopes to win the Senate this fall.

Former Missouri Rep. Todd Akin's memoir is due out this month — and Politico reports that he does not apologize for his comments on "legitimate rape" or how the remarks brought victory to Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill or how they hurt the GOP's effort to retake the upper chamber in 2012.

"Todd Akin is an embarrassment to the Republican Party and the sole reason Claire McCaskill is still part of Harry Reid’s majority," Brian Walsh, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2012 election cycle, told Politico.

"It's frankly pathetic that just like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell in 2010, he refuses to take any responsibility for sticking his foot in his mouth, alienating voters and costing Republicans a critical Senate seat," Walsh said. "Worse, he’s now trying to make money off his defeat. The sooner he leaves the stage again, the better."

Akin, a six-term congressman who quit the House to run for the Senate, attacked 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Republican strategist Karl Rove for not supporting him — and their representatives told Politico that they did the right thing.

"Todd Akin has no one to blame for his loss but Todd Akin," said Kevin Madden, a former Romney senior adviser. "Anyone looking at the question reasonably would conclude it doesn’t make any sense for a former candidate to just assign blame to a long list of rattled off names.

Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for American Crossroads, the nonprofit political group that Rove advises, said that Akin's "increasingly intricate theories of legitimate rape only deepen our conviction that we made the right call in 2012.

"His failed campaign ultimately helped convince us to get involved in primaries this cycle to help the party avoid squandering more opportunities in winnable seats," Lindsay said.